Just a Little Vacation
by Prophe-Cass
Summary: Hunk takes a brief leave of absence from the war to spend time with Shay. He takes her to a beautiful, unexplored planet so she can see an ocean for the first time, and things go downhill from there. (Written by my brother for April Fools, 2019)
1. Chapter 1

"Hey Coran!" Hunk poked his head into the bridge where the rest of the team was milling about. "We got anything going on in the next, uhhhhh… Week?"

"Oh well let me see…" The old Altean bent almost double to squint down at the navigation console. "No, nothing much really. We're still waiting to Rendezvous with that resistance convoy. Can't very well go to the next target without some backup, can we? No telling how long they'll be though. We could be holding this orbit for 5 quintants waiting for them… In the meantime, I was thinking we could use some training. Or some janitorial work! Or janitorial training!"

"Oh, okay, sweet." Hunk nodded. "No battles or big business. That's all I needed to hear."

Pidge glanced up from her computer, and noticed the duffle bag slung over Hunk's shoulder. "What, you got plans?"

"Yeaaah, you ditching us?" Lance piped up.

"Oh! Uh… Kinda. No. Ish." Hunk shrugged. "Yeah, no, I was just thinking of maybe taking Yellow out for a ride. See the sights. I dunno. Little break."

"OH, SO YOUR DEVIOUS PLOT COMES TOGETHER!" Coran whirled on him. "Trying to skimp out of janitorial duty, ARE YA? Leaving all the dirty work to the rest of us!"

"Huh? No- I mean… Is that a big problem? Like, I can clean toilets or whatever when I get back. Right? Just an 'I owe you' type thing."

"I.O.U.?" Coran jabbed a finger at him. "Don't try to weasel your way out of this with your mysterious Earth acronyms! YOU have a sworn and sacred duty that I assigned to you just now! A duty to scrub bathrooms! And that's-"

"No, I mean, I can do all the work later. You guys can just save my portion for when I get back, and I'll do it. And besides, the bathrooms aren't _that _bad, right?"

"Hmmmmmmmm." Coran squinted hard at him.

"And in the meantime, I made you guys some cookies." Hunk revealed a jar.

"Oh well why didn't you say so! Have fun wherever you're going!" Coran snatched one up and spun on his heel back toward the display. "Now where was I?" He mumbled around a mouthful. "Oh yes, orbit calculations! Hm-humm-deedee-dum."

"Okay yeah, but where is it exactly that you're going?" Lance held up his hand for a cookie of his own.

"See the sights." Hunk tossed one toward him. "Planets. Moons. Space. Comets. Planets… Y'know. Space sights."

"But we see space sights like, every day." Lance failed to catch it, but ate it off the floor anyway.

"Eh. Maybe something special. I dunno. I haven't really decided." Hunk glanced at Coran's navigation display, and let his eyes surf over the millions of tiny specks of light. "What do you guys think? What makes places special? …Like, what's the most beautiful and special thing we've ever seen?"

"Like… Some place we haven't been to for a while?" Shiro frowned.

"Or someplace beautiful that you wish to return to?" Allura clarified.

"I dunno, like… Someplace that would be really good to see for the first time, you know?" Hunk scratched his chin. "Like if you hadn't seen much of the universe, and wanted to see a place for the first time?"

"Like someplace to go for a date?" Pidge raised her eyebrows.

"Huh." Hunk's face went blank. "What no. Uh."

"I see what you're doing." Pidge pointed to the navigation display with a wink. "We're only 50 light-years from the Balmera. You're going to take Shay somewhere nice."

"Uhhhh… Yeah, well." Hunk admitted.

"Good for you!" Pidge gave a thumbs-up.

"That's so sweet, Hunk!" Allura smiled.

"Go get 'em." Shiro nodded.

"That… Heh heh… _Rocks._" Coran winked.

"Ha ha, yeah! Rocks! Good one Coran!" Lance guffawed.

"Hmm." Keith didn't even turn around.

"Alright, thank you, thank you, you're all very supportive." Hunk sighed, and began to pass the cookies around. "But seriously though, does anybody have any ideas of where we should go? I mean… I was just thinking that… She spent her whole life underground, you know? And even now, the Balmeran surface is kind of… Barren? Just a lot of mountains and desert and crystals and rocks… I mean, maybe people who are made of rock like rocks, but it'd still be nice to see somewhere else, something cool or special, beyond her horizons… I dunno, where should I take her?"

"Uh… Space?" Keith offered.

"No, like…" Hunk scratched his head. "Like, what kind of places do you guys like? What kind of places do you miss? Or where you wish you could live? Or see again?"

They thought about that.

"Seriously, space." Keith repeated. "Space is huge. Empty. Lonely. You can just step out the airlock, look out at the stars, turn off your comms, and just… Drift. Nobody around but you. It's relaxing."

"…The beach." Lance said. "I miss the beach."

"Maybe you could describe different kinds of places to her, and ask which one she'd like most?" Pidge shrugged.

"Somewhere exciting!" Coran offered. "If there's one thing I know about women, it's that they love excitement! Gotta do something that gets her blood pumping! Fending off bloodthirsty Flavthors! Being chased by rabid Grusoints! Anything involving mechaforms! Mortal danger in general is always a good place to start."

"Well, I think she would enjoy anywhere you'd take her." Allura said.

"Allura's right." Shiro agreed. "A trip's destination is less important than the people it's spent with. And since you'd be there with her, I think you're good."

Only one of them had given a straight answer. "The beach!" Hunk snapped his fingers, and turned to leave the bridge. "Thanks Lance!"

* * *

"Balmeran flight control? I mean, uh, come in Balmeran flight control, can anyone hear me? Is this the right—?"

"This is Balmeran flight control. Identify yourself! This is a secure channel."

"Ha ha, yeah, but it's also the _only_ channel, am I right?"

"Identify yourself _immediately_! How did you get this code?"

"Oh, right, yeah! Sorry. Uh. This is Hunk Garret, Paladin of Voltron." He pressed a button to relay his lion's comm signature.

"Voltron!" The voice on the other end of the line changed tone as soon as they confirmed. "To what do we owe the honor? Is there danger? Do you require assistance?"

"Uh? Oh. No. No, we were just in the area. Wanted to land and check up on things. Just real quick. There's only one of us this time, not all 5, so I don't really want to make a buzz or anything. Would that be alright?"

"Of course! May we have an estimate of your arrival time?"

"Uh… 3 vargas, maybe?"

"We will have a landing area ready for you. Contact us for reentry vectors once you enter orbit."

"Great. Yeah. Uh…" Hunk scratched his head. "Also, kinda weird question, but… Does Shay have a phone?"

"Does who have a what?"

"Never mind. Over and out." Hunk fired up the yellow lion's thrusters, and prepared to leave the castle's bay.

* * *

Apparently word had gotten out about his arrival, because by the time he descended into the Balmera's atmosphere and pulled into a hover over the landing area, there was already a small crowd gathered to watch. Their stony little silhouettes kind of all blended together from this distance, but there was one near the front he thought he recognized, and it made him smile. He let go of the controls for just a moment to wave, knowing full well that there was no way she would be able to see the action from outside the cockpit.

She waved back anyway.

A minute or two later and they were face to face, him with his helmet under one arm, and her with her hands on her hips. How long had it been since they'd last seen each other? A year? A little less? A little more? How many years was a 'deca-phoeb?' It felt a little longer, but he wasn't really sure… Eh, who cares? At the moment, it didn't feel so long at all.

"Hey Shay."

"Hi Hunk."

"So…" He didn't really know what to say, and shrugged. "How've things been going?"

"Times have been kind." She shrugged back. "For the most part… It's nice to have food in abundance. And not have to serve the machines."

"Oh yeah, food. Food's always nice." Hunk heartily agreed. "Yeah, I'm glad…" His voice faltered, because he realized that although Shay's voice was cheerful, she wasn't smiling. He tried to change the topic toward something else that was nice, not really knowing what he was doing wrong. "Uh. Oh yeah, I was talking over the ansible with one of the elders or whoever on the way here. He said the Balmera is starting to heal?"

"Oh, it is." Shay gestured toward a huge crater not far from the landing area. "Here lies the old main shaft."

"Oh wow, it's a lot smaller!" Hunk stepped over to the rim and leaned over to look down. "Like, half as wide as it used to be…" The metal trusses and conveyor systems that used to crisscross the pit had all been cut off and disposed of, and the rocky walls seemed to have expanded and rounded out. The newer deposits had a darker color and rougher texture, so that they resembled something like tree bark. Or a scab. The scientifically-inclined half of his brain took the wheel for a moment. "…Does a healthy Balmera have any tunnels at all?"

"It does." Shay nodded. "But… Smaller. More interwoven. Not like the mineshafts and hangars the Galra implanted. Our people have much work to do now, to remove the larger components before the tunnels grow too small. There are still a few reactors in the creature's depths that we didn't take out in time; they will have to be cut into pieces and ferried by hand."

"Reactors, huh? That sounds… Kind of dangerous."

"Well, we turned them off and took all the fuel out."

"Oh. Great. Okay. Never mind."

"Yes."

Hunk heard her voice catch over something. "…Hey, are you okay?" He asked. "What's, uh… What's wrong."

"Oh." She opened her mouth. Then closed it again. When she opened it for the second time, her voice was small. "My grandmother died."

"Oh."

That was a strange moment for Hunk. He remembered her grandma fondly: a short, wrinkly Balmeran with a warm smile… Well, maybe 'wrinkly' wasn't the right word. Crusty? Yeah, crusty.

Back when he and a friend had first arrived on the Balmera, she'd made them soup. She hadn't even known that they were Voltron then; they were just fugitives, in grave danger and needing help, with nothing to their names but a tiny ship, and nothing to offer but vague ideas of salvation… And this crusty old lady had made them soup… She didn't have to, and she probably didn't have a lot of soup to give, but she did anyway.

Even offered seconds.

And that made Hunk feel really bad, because now he realized that he'd never actually known her. Never talked with her, never gave her a hug or repayment or spent time with her or shared a recipe back… Never even knew her name. Never knew a single blessed thing about her… And now he couldn't even remember the sound of her voice; now he was just hungry for soup.

And that made him feel like a huge scumbag.

"I'm… I'm really sorry." He said. "I… Uh… She was really nice."

"Yes." Shay sat down on the edge of the chasm. "Yes she was."

"How'd she die?" Hunk eased down beside her.

"Grey throat. It's an ailment cultivated by a lifetime of breathing dust."

"Oh."

"It shortens the lives of many who toiled in the mines. Hers was not so short, but… Still."

"Yeah… Was she… Close? I mean, you whole family seemed pretty tight."

"Like a parent."

"Oh."

"The Balmera was still sick when she left." Shay noted. "And now it's gotten well. It's become beautiful… And she never got to see it…" Shay ran her face through her hands with a sigh. In the moment of quiet that followed, she realized that she was heaping quite a lot of drama on an honored guest without much warning. Suddenly embarrassed, she returned her hands to her lap and gave him a polite smile. (She really was very happy to see him, after all. Why not pretend to be cheerful for his sake?) "How have you been?" She asked.

"Oh, uh… Good." Hunk racked his brain for something cool or fun to say. "Exciting, y'know? Lotta fighting recently. Laser beams and swords and robots and, uh, more spaceships than I can really even count… But at the same time, I guess there's not much to say… I mean, it would take a really long time to tell, and it kinda blurs together, and the people themselves haven't really changed so, I guess… I guess it's all the same."

"Hero business."

"I guess."

"Hero of the universe."

"Ha ha, uh. So I'm told."

"Why have you come back here?"

"Well, we were in the area, and had a couple days to spare…" He shrugged. "So I wanted to. Y'know. Check up on you guys, make sure you hadn't gotten any more trouble from the Galra. Make sure the Balmera was still healthy. That everything was still good. And stuff."

"You're very kind."

"And uh… After stopping here, I was thinking about exploring a little. Maybe find a new planet. See some new sights…"

"Cool."

"…And I was gonna ask you if you wanted to come along."

"…Me?"

"Well yeah, uh… I tried to call ahead, but there's only one ansible channel, and, so… I didn't know about your grandma, and the, uh… The reactors and work and stuff, so… I did-"

"I'd love to." She interrupted him, and when Hunk looked to her, he saw that she was smiling for real, and that she'd already stood up. "I just need to gather my things."

"Oh. Well okay! Ha ha! Uh. I mean, if you want to?"

"I do." She really did want to go somewhere else, spend time with somebody different, think about something happier and better. Think about anything at all. She really did want to leave. "I really, really do."

* * *

"…Yeah, they were pretty nice back on the world I'm from." Hunk was explaining to her as they walked back to the landing site. "I grew up on an island, so we were around them pretty much all the time. I've seen some other planets that have them, and some are—WOAH HEY!" Hunk noticed a few children standing around the lion's feet, tugging on one of its claws. "Hey, what do you think you're doing over there?"

"We're stealing it!" The youngest one boasted.

"We're ferocious pirates!" The older one added.

"Bloodthirsty!" The middle one yelled. "Yaaargh!"

"OOOOOUUUUGHHHHHH" Hunk gasped. "Pirates! You know what happens to pirates where I'm from?"

They didn't.

"They get chased down!" Hunk announced, taking a step forward. "And captured! And then banished to the island of perpetual tickling! YAAAARGH!" He charged full-bore, arms flailing, while the kids screeched in joy and ran for cover.

Shay laughed as he went, and folded her arms to watch.

She was interrupted by a rough hand on her shoulder. She turned to see her brother, who quickly guided her out of Hunk's earshot, and spoke in a low voice. "I don't like it." He hissed.

"What? The trip?"

"Yes!"

"I think it will be fun. What don't you like?"

"He's taking you away! To space or who-knows-where! You won't have any friends or family, or anybody at all who knows you to protect you! What if something goes wrong?"

"We won't be gone long, Rax. And besides, he's a paladin of Voltron! He's a great hero! He can take care of everything… And besides, we aren't going into battle; just to a planet. We're going to see an _ocean_."

"A what?"

"An ocean! He says it's a very large lot of water but it smells good and there's wind… I don't know, but he says it's very nice."

"Okay, uh… But…" Rax glanced over his shoulder to make sure the human wasn't listening. "But what about _him?_ You barely know him! This is only the third time you have ever seen each other! What if his intentions are dishonest?"

"They aren't!" She was indignant. "He's a good man. He's kind. And sweet."

Rax looked back again, and saw the human lumbering after the pirates making dramatic, monstrous noises. The children ran circles around him, laughing their heads off. One of them grabbed hold of his leg, and he made a great show of being unable to move.

Well… There definitely didn't seem to be anything suspicious about the human; Rax knew Shay was probably right. Probably. "But still…" He sighed. "I could stowaway, if you wanted? I would stay hidden, I wouldn't do anything or interrupt unless there was trouble… You wouldn't even know I was there."

"No, no. It's fine. You don't need to do that."

"Alright. But… Only promise me you'll look after yourself? Stay safe."

"Of course I will."

"And if he tries to hurt you, or threaten you, or if you feel endangered, crush his skull." Rax made a clamping motion with his hands. "You're strong enough, and he's only made of bone. You just need to be brave."

"RAX!" She punched him in the shoulder. "That's a wrong thing to say! And to think!"

"Well…! Well even if it's not him. Even if it's somebody else. If you ever run into anyone or anything that wishes you harm… Just remember you're not defenseless."

"Rax…"

"Hey, alright, I think I took care of our little problem!" Hunk came walking back toward them now, with one kid on his shoulders, another one being tickled in his arms, and another one still hanging onto his leg. "Showed these scallywags who's boss, eh? We should make our escape now, while they're subdued… Oh hey, hi there Rax! How's it going?"

"Hmm. Fine." Rax nodded, and made to leave. "Just wishing my sister well… Making sure she packed her scrubbing paste. You two have fun out there."

"Oh. Alright. Nice to see ya!" Hunk waved at his retreating back. "See ya 'round, I guess… Uh… Huh… Wow, he doesn't like me much, does he?"

"He doesn't like many people." Shay shrugged. "Is the machine ready?"

"Oh yeah." Hunk untangled himself from the kids, ushered them off to a safe distance, and led the way over toward the lion's crouching form. "He was born ready."

Shay was leaning over Hunk's shoulder as he throttled up the engines and rose them into the air. Beyond the viewing window, Rax was still standing at the perimeter of the landing pad. He made another clamping motion. "Not defenseless." He mouthed up at her.

Her eyes turned away from him, to fix on the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

The stony ground of the Balmera fell out from beneath them, and the horizon curved away until they were high enough that the true shape of the creature could be seen; an angular, crystallized shell of stone seemingly floating at the bottom of its cloudy atmosphere. They broke orbit with a tremendous feeling of height and speed, and Shay was given the bizarre realization that the whole of her life, her experience, her knowledge, the sum of her entire world to date, was all bound and contained within that small brown object behind them. Perhaps the little shape was watching her go, perhaps it was waiting for her to return, perhaps it was continuing on without her, perhaps it wouldn't recognize her when she returned… As she left it behind, and watched it go, and as their velocity increased further and further, even exceeded the speed of light as the Alcubierre drive stages on the lion's engines kicked in… Shay felt new. She didn't feel free necessarily, nor lost. Not scared or happy or sad either… Just new. As if she wasn't quite sure who Shay was apart from the Balmera, and was about to find out. She enjoyed the feeling, and as the world faded away and joined the distant obscurity of the starscape, neither she nor Hunk were quite sure why she laughed, but they both liked the sound of it.

Hunk released the lion's controls, and said it could run just fine on autopilot for most of the journey, and that it would be a few hours until they reached their destination.

"What do you Paladins usually do to pass the time?" She asked. "As you wait?"

"Well, I dunno what everyone else does." Hunk shrugged. "I bet Pidge studies. Lance… Grooms himself? I dunno, maybe picks his nose. I usually just nap."

"…Want to play Skizzletig?" She held up a small bag of numbered pebbles.

Hunk jumped up from his seat, with no idea what that was or how to play. "Heck YES!"

Three hours later, Hunk knew perfectly well what Skizzletig was, and was getting sort of good at it. He was interrupted from a brief winning streak when the lion emitted a low rumbling noise, and the console lights lit up. "That's my cue!" He pushed all his pebbles back to the center of the board, rolled himself up off his stomach, returned to the pilot's seat, and pulled back on the controls to drop back down from lightspeed.

As Shay scooped the last few pebbles into the bag and drew it shut, she stepped up behind him. "Also, you lost 12 games out of 20." She reminded him. "So… You owe me four hundred coinroot."

"I, uh… Wait, AAHH! We were playing for money?!" Hunk spun around with a frightened squeal, and his heart nearly stopped.

Shay burst out laughing.

"Oh... Oh, ha ha." He shook his head. "Very funny."

She remembered that when her family played Skizzletig, her grandma used to demand money whenever she'd won, just to freak out the kids…

_Grandma…_

Her smile waned. _Grandma's memory followed me. A quarter galaxy away, adrift in the inky black void, the memory had followed and found me, faster than light… We must miss each other very much._

She would have preferred to be a little more alone, but she was glad she was here.

Outside Hunk's window, one of the distant dots of light grew larger, and resolved into a planet as they neared. Shay leaned further forward, closer to the alien sight.

The atmosphere was blue; a thin, clear haze that shone in the sunlight, and speckled the surface below with white clouds and the grey shadows of clouds. The land beneath was brown, with shades of green and purples from vegetation, crisscrossed over with mountains and canyons. Every so often the land would drop off and give way to enormous patches of perfectly smooth blue, reflecting the sky like a mirror. Shay guessed that these must be ocean, but decided to hold her questions until they were landed, and she could see it all up close.

This was the first planet she'd ever seen aside from her homeworld, and the first one so teeming with life and variety. Everything about it seemed mysterious and interesting, rich all over with the potential for adventure. It felt wrong to betray her own world by calling this one more beautiful, but it would be just as wrong to lie by saying it wasn't so. "What is this world's name?" She asked.

"It doesn't have a name." Hunk replied. "The only thing to ever visit it was an old Galra exploration probe. So nobody ever named it, it just has a number – SR337."

"…We are the first?"

"I think so."

"Why hasn't anybody ever come here before?"

"Not sure. I think the main reason is that space is just incredibly huge, and there isn't nearly enough people to fill it up. The Galra empire may technically rule the whole universe, but really, it just rules the important planets; the ones they know that have people on them. Places like this, that are out of the way and far from anything and don't have much to offer… Well. Everybody just speeds by. Like my homeworld? It's well inside the Galra empire, but nobody there even knew they existed… Seems like most of the universe is peaceful. Entire galaxies are untouched."

"I see."

"Plus, the probe that found SR337 classified it as 'uninhabitable', so that's probably another reason nobody gave it a second look… I'm not sure why it did though; the temperature and atmospheric readings look perfect, and it's obviously full of life. Must've just been malfunctioning."

"Yes… I can't wait."

"Yeah, me neither." Hunk stared for a couple seconds at a section of coastline at the base of a small range of mountains, at a longitude where the sun had just risen. "Alright, there looks good! Woosh!" He twisted the controls, and the lion blasted downwards out of its orbit.

Shay hung on tight, and enjoyed the rush of the fall. "I hope you'll like it." She whispered to her grandma.

* * *

Hunk led her, eyes covered, down an embankment.

The ocean air was just how he'd described it to her: warm and wet. A stiff wind was pushing back at her and tugging at the edges of her clothes, and it carried with it a strange, sharp smell, like salt and minerals and all kinds of life. A bit of damp spray passed over her face, and it tasted salty and strange. A rumbling, churning noise echoed all around her, growing slowly in volume as they neared its source.

Beneath her feet, she felt rocks and grass give way to soft, granular sand. The sand was dry at first but became more wet, and here they stopped.

Hunk took his hands off her eyes. "Aaaaand Voila!" He announced.

Most of you readers are (I assume) native to the planet Earth, and thus are probably familiar with beaches vaguely like the one before her, and can imagine it more clearly than I can describe it. Gentle waves were falling on each other and slapping at the white sand, glinting in the sunlight. Towering green trees and tall purple mushrooms overshadowed the rocky slopes above the sand, and plains and mountains stood beyond those. Out over the water, birds of prey glided about on translucent, membranous wings, occasionally diving down to pluck at polyp colonies near the surface. An island or two crouched silently in the shallows beyond the bay, waiting for the tide to rise. Flocks of fat birds of a thousand descriptions nested high among the rocks to their left, making a hilarious, distant din as they squabbled over sticks and scraps of molted skin. A multitude of Hard-shelled creatures, some as small as your finger and some as large as a car, rested lazily among the lower reaches of the rocks, too heavy and too hard for the birds to attack. Slimy tendrils fanned out of their tails to soak up the sun. One of the distant mountains shifted slightly in preparation.

"It's beautiful." Shay whispered.

Hunk smiled.

"…And that's… That's all water…?"

"Yeah."

She laughed to herself at how different it was. "Back on the Balmera…" She reminisced. "We tried to keep all the water confined to the arteries and channels… Standing water was thought to breed diseases. And rot. And bugs…"

"A lot of stuff breeds in ocean water too." Hunk agreed. "But not only bad stuff. On Earth we had fish, squid, seaweed, crabs and lobsters and junk…" Shay didn't know what any of those were. "Some pretty cool stuff. Looks like we have some similar things here. I'm seeing some octopus lobsters over there… Those birds look a lot like manta rays or bats… I think those are jellyfish or something, floating out there on the water. Or algae? I can't tell. Probably don't want to mess with those. But yeah."

Shay walked further down the sand, until the waves were splashing around her ankles, eroding the sand out from beneath the weight of her feet, burying her a millimeter at a time if she were to stand still. The water was cool; not cold but not warm. A nice balance to the heat of the sun. She was up to her knees now, and her dress was soaking it up.

She bent down and cupped her hands in a wave, then brought it to her lips and took a sip.

She spat it out with a squeaky snort. "Ew, that's disgusting!" She laughed. "It's salty!"

"Whaaaat?" Hunk came wading up behind her; he was still in his space suit. "You don't like salt water? Why, that's the best kind of water!" He sounded indignant, outraged. "Back on my planet, it's considered _rude_ not to drink the salt water!"

"Oh… It is…?" She looked at him. Then back to the foul liquid cupped in her hands. She took another sip. And spat it out again. Hunk burst out laughing. "Oh, you joker!" She threw the water at him. "That was payment for the gambling joke, wasn't it?"

"Yeaaaaaah, well!" Hunk bent over, cupped a handful of water, and threw it back at her.

She turned her head away to shield the attack, then splashed him back. He returned with another volley. And so it continued until they were both soaked. "I!" Hunk announced. "I should not have worn my spacesuit! I will be right back." He hurried back out of the water, up the sand, through the rocks, and back toward the treeline where the lion crouched. "Hey, you want any sunscreen?" He asked over his shoulder.

"What's that?"

"Oh, just something to keep the sun from giving you rashes."

"What's a rash?"

"Ah. Right. Uhh, never mind." He continued on his way.

Shay's eyes wandered back across the ocean, and she wished that grandma were here. "I'm glad you like it." She whispered. "I like it too."

"What was that?" Hunk called back.

"Nothing!"

"Alright!"

* * *

A while later, they'd had their fill of splashing around in the shallows, and found themselves walking along the shoreline.

"Hey, how heavy are you?" Hunk asked.

"Hmm, 500 dythos?" Shay guessed. "Why?"

"Hmm… I'm just trying to figure density." Hunk scratched his head. "You and I look like we're roughly the same volume, ish, but I'm only 320 dythos. Which means you're a lot denser than me."

"Yes." She nodded. "You are a big, puffy marshmallow."

"Why thank you." He smiled. "I'm also carbon-based. You're silicon-based, which is a much heavier element. So I'm pretty sure I can't teach you to swim, because you'd just sink."

"Oh. Yes." Shay nodded. "When I was a child, they told us not to play in the Balmera's arteries, because we would just drop to the bottom, and the current would carry us away."

"Yikes. Yeah. Never mind then." He glanced at the waves. "I'm just trying to think of stuff we can do on the beach. We can't swim, because you'd sink. We can't suntan, because suntanning is stupid, and you can't tan anyway… Have you ever heard of surfing?"

"No."

"Chances are you never will, because I sure don't know how."

"Heh heh." She smiled.

"Yeah. We could build a sandcastle or…? Hey, wanna check out those big lobster-octopus guys over there?" He pointed further down the beach.

"Sure!"

They approached the nearest group of shelled beasts. There was a larger one in the center, surrounded by a crowd of small and medium ones of every size. Hunk couldn't quite tell if they were its young or what, but they all looked pretty much the same, except for the sizes.

The large one seemed to register their approach, and a pair of beady black eyes extended from its head on short stalks, to stare at the two aliens. The smaller ones all followed suit, until Hunk and Shay were being examined by hundreds of tiny eyeballs. "Woah, cool!" Hunk smiled. "They're all super in-tune with each other. Must be like an ant colony. Or a beehive or something."

"Like a family…?" Shay agreed, and crouched to give them a closer look.

"Yeah… Man, I've never seen a crustacean that huge." Hunk was looking at the large one. "Wonder how heavy it is?"

"2000 dythos at least." Shay estimated, and reached forward to touch a small one. It scuttled away, back toward the center of the herd, and the others seemed to perk up. "Uh…" She suddenly frowned. "…What if they get mad?"

"Uh… We back away slowly?" Hunk shrugged. "Worse comes to worse, I've got my bayard on me. And if we make it back to the lion, I've got some bug spray."

"And I'm strong." Shay agreed, and made a clamping motion with her hands. "I can crush their skulls."

"Uhhhh… Okay. Sweet."

As if they could understand this disreputable turn of conversation, the herd reacted. First the creatures all retracted their tentacles and eyes. Then the armor plates on the backs of the medium-sized creatures opened and lifted up, and all the smaller ones scuttled up into them. Then the largest creature opened its plates, and all the medium-sized ones crawled up under them in the same way, so that within seconds, the entire herd was hidden inside the single creature, as inside a fortress or an armored vehicle. The fortress-beast raised itself off the ground on 10 thick legs, and turned to face Hunk and Shay with all the pomp and menace of an angry bull. A wide mouth full of teeth opened sideways, and clicked at them. The sharp claws on its feet scratched at the ground threateningly.

"WHAT." Shay said.

"OOOOKAY then, now we back away." Hunk nodded. "Nice and calm. Easy as that."

It aggressively lumbered after them. "Alright, okay, don't want trouble, that's far enough buddy." Hunk stopped retreating, put himself between Shay and the fortress-beast, and pulled out his bayard. It lit up a bright yellow.

The creature froze. Its eyes stared at the yellow light for a few seconds, then turned upwards to look at the sun. Then it turned around, and crawled away toward the water. A minute later the last arch of its shell disappeared beneath the waves, and there was a bit of foam as the smaller creatures crawled back out of its body to swim separately in its wake.

"Huh. Alright." Hunk shrugged, as he put away his bayard. "Easy peasy rice and cheesy. Just like that."

"The skull-crushing wasn't my idea…" Shay whispered. "Rax told me to do that…"

"Huh? What'd you say?" Hunk asked.

"Oh! Uh… Sorry. I… Uh…" She hesitated for a moment. "I… I was speaking to my grandma." She admitted, hoping that wouldn't sound too odd and crazy.

"Oh." Hunk thought that sounded kind of odd and crazy, but he knew there also had to be a good reason for it, so he wasn't sure what to say. "…You okay?" He asked after a moment.

"I…" She shrugged. "I've… I've just been missing her."

"Yeah."

"…On my world… They… They say that whenever you miss somebody who's passed on… Whenever you think of them in strange times, or wish that they were there with you… That means that their ghost is there. They're watching you, because they miss you too."

"Oh." Hunk sat down on a piece of driftwood. Shay sat down next to him. "So… You've been thinking of your grandma, so she's here?"

"I think so…" Shay said. "I suppose she followed me. Followed me across the galaxy… Or maybe I brought her with me? I'm not sure… But the only way for her to move on to the next life and find her peace is for the people who loved her to move as well… But I don't know how I can… Everything reminds me of her. Even here, where nothing is familiar and I should be seeing a new world with new eyes… It's like I'm seeing it with old eyes. Her eyes."

"Hmm." Hunk considered that for a moment. "Does she like it here? Like this planet?"

"She does." Shay smiled. "It's a happy place here. It's beautiful… I don't think that the Balmera was ever quite so happy and beautiful. We only ever saw it when it was sick and desolate, and even when it was healed, there was much hard work to do, and then she died and it was sad again… It's like the nice things weren't real because they didn't last… So thanks for bringing me here, to a place that is always good… I wish she was here because I know she would like it so much..."

"Hmm."

"And I like it very much too. I didn't mean to bring sadness with me."

"Hey, it's fine." Hunk held out his arms for a hug. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks." She put her arms around him gently. "You're kind."

"No prob."

* * *

The morning was nearing its end. The sun had finished rising in the west, and was just reaching the apex of its arc above. (Opposite of Earth, though Hunk was never quite sure if the rotation direction or magnetic field alignment was switched. He supposed it didn't really matter.)

Hunk and Shay had spent the morning hours wandering the beaches and forests, and now they were getting tired. They wandered back in the direction of the lion, where they found a flat patch of grass, and spread out a picnic blanket. Hunk retrieved some cookies and a pot of something he'd cooked up the night before, and they sat down to enjoy it.

Ever-increasing numbers of birds gathered in the trees overhead, chirping and singing at each other. A few small bugs crawled across the blanket looking for some food to lay eggs on, and on a flower to their left, a tiny cocoon cracked open. Something like a butterfly dropped out, and scurried off through the underbrush toward the beach. Hunk and Shay enjoyed the sights and sounds, but thought nothing of them.

"So, how do you like the food?"

"It's very good." Shay smiled. "It tastes like Quasop."

"Oh, thanks!" Hunk took that as a compliment based on context alone, having no idea what Quasop was. "Yeah, it's kinda hard finding ingredients that are nutritious for both our species, but I think I've amassed a pretty good collection over the years." He bragged. "My body needs something called 'glucose' in food, or variations of it. But Balmerans, and most other silicon-based people, usually use chemicals like-"

As Shay's eyes wandered through the trees, something startled her. "Ah! Hunk, look!"

"AH!" Her outburst startled him as well. "WHAT'S WRONG?! WHAT IS IT?"

"THAT! LOOK! WHAT'S THAT?!" His outburst startled her even more.

Hunk's eyes landed on it. "AHH!" He screamed. "UHH! Uhh! Uh. Uhhhhhhhhh… Wait…" It was what looked like a pair of enormous, dark-brown legs, walking slowly through the jungle on long strides, making for the beach. They stood about two meters tall, and they had no knees, but instead bent evenly along their length. "Those… Are legs." Hunk assessed.

"Where's the arms though?" Shay demanded. "And the body? Or a head? What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know!" Hunk regarded the legs for a few seconds. "I guess it just doesn't have them…?" The legs passed within about 20 meters of them before continuing on. "I dunno. That's bizarre. How the heck does it eat…?"

"Is that a person?" Shay whispered. "It walks like a person."

"Most intelligent races have _hands._" Hunk frowned. "Or… Heads. Or brains at least. I have no clue what that was, but I don't think it was a person. Just some weird thing that happened to be biped."

"That freaked me out." Shay said.

"Yeah." Hunk turned back to the picnic. "I guess it was kinda-AAAHHH!"

Shay turned too. "AHH!"

There was another one standing right next to them.

"Geez! These things!" Hunk threw a cookie at it. "What the heck is with these things? Get a torso, you freak!"

The cookie bounced off and landed in the dirt. The thing stepped on the cookie and the cookie disappeared.

"Oh. Must have mouths on the bottom of its feet…?" Hunk gave the creature a closer look.

"It has eyes too…" Shay pointed to the top of the thighs. "Four of them. Up there."

"Huh… Yeah, so it does… Hey, waitaminute!" He stood up. "I get it! Look at this thing! It's not even one creature at all! It's two fish!" He pointed to the pelvis area, where there was a seam; the two legs were held together by a pair of blunted claws. "It's just two fish, or eels or something! They just grab onto each other and coordinate to walk on land! Their heads and bodies become the thighs, and their tails become the rest of the leg. Kinda weird to have a mouth on the tail, but otherwise… Yeah."

The thing's left foot spat up half the cookie it had eaten, to share with the right.

"…Let's call it the 'Voltron Fish'." Shay said.

"Huh?" Hunk frowned. "Oh, I get it. Ha ha. Yeah. Bigger creature made of smaller ones. That's funny."

"Yes. They are not as good as the real Voltron though. Voltron is elegant."

"Why thank you."

The Voltron Fish glanced upwards at the sun, then turned and ran off through the jungle toward the beach. It really did move remarkably like a human. When it reached the edge of the water, the two fish let go of each other, fell apart, and swam away, still right next to each other in perfect sync.

"Nature is weird." Hunk said.

"Hmm." Shay agreed.

Through the rest of the meal, the occasionally spotted more of these Voltron fish walking towards the sea, while more and more birds gathered in the trees above. They didn't notice the mountains shifting.

* * *

An hour or so later, Hunk was stowing the leftovers in the lion's storage area, and thinking about plans for tonight: it would be cool to start a campfire, but he'd forgotten to bring a lighter or matches. Maybe he could shoot a tree with one of the lion's lasers? …That might be a little over-the-top. He just wanted a little fire, something to cook marshmallows and dinner with, not an enormous bonfire and a crater. He wasn't sure if the lion's weapons could operate on low enough power to prevent a forest fire; subtlety wasn't exactly one of these machines' strong suites.

Maybe he could drag a small log out to the sand, and shoot that?

Yeah, that might work.

Of course, it would be nice to set up the tents next to the fire, and if the fire was down there, they could risk being flooded when the tide came in.

Oh, decisions, decisions.

"Hey Shay?" He called out the door. "Do you want to sleep in tents tonight, or in the lion? There's a couple beds in here, so we could really do either."

"Umm!" Shay called back. "Hey Hunk, something weird is happening."

"What?" He crammed the last of the supplies into the hatch, and hurried back outside. Shay was standing on the rocks, looking out over the ocean. "Who the what the hey now?" He stood at the ready. "Wassup? What's wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. Just strange."

"Oh, you mean the birds?" Hunk gestured up to the sky. All the birds that had been gathering on the shore, and all those that had been nesting in the rocks, were all taking off and flying out to sea. "Yeah, I think I know this. They do the same sorta thing on Earth too. It's called migration."

"Migration?"

"Yeah. When it gets cold in the winter they fly to warmer parts of the planet, and then when it gets warmer, they fly back to colder parts. Some of them fly for thousands of kilometers."

"Wow." Shay marveled, with no idea what a kilometer was. "There's so many of them…"

"Yeah." The birds above them numbered in the hundreds, perhaps in the thousands. The noise of their wings could be heard from the ground, and their shadows danced across the beach. "We're in the planet's Northern hemisphere." Hunk added. "And they're flying north… So that would be toward a colder climate, I guess? Maybe this is springtime? I dunno, I just got here, ha ha."

"Yes. Springtime…" Shay watched the great flocks of bird, soaring and flapping overhead like a parade. "I wish I could leave you here…" She whispered to her grandma's ghost. "Where everything is perfect. I wish I could forget you now, so that you could live until the next life in happiness…"

"The weird thing to me." Hunk mentioned. "Is that the Voltron Fish are all going in the same direction." He pointed to small group of about 10 such fish crossing the forest to their left. "I guess some fish migrate too, but it's all happening at the same time. So that's kind of weird. They've been doing it all day too. Just seemed to pick up in the last hour or so."

"Hmm." Shay had a sudden strange thought, and glanced further down the beach. Just as she suspected, the fortress-beasts were moving their shelled herds down toward the water as well. "It seems like everything is heading North." She remarked. "All going out to sea."

"Wow. Weird." Hunk scratched his head. "I… I don't… Know… How to explain that. That's… Really weird."

"What's that noise?"

Hunk became aware of it too: a tremendous sound of crashing and rushing coming from further back in the forest. They turned to behold an enormous school of Voltron Fish stampeding towards them through the trees, fast and hard and closely packed. "Ah!" Shay yelped.

"Okay, we gotta run! We'll get trampled!" Hunk realized they would never make it back to the lion in time, and instead led the way in a sprint toward the beach. The Voltron Fish, with their longer legs, overtook them in no time, and Hunk was bumped and kicked and shoved from all over in their mad dash. Shay was right behind him, though not having as difficult of a time in the crowd, owing to her harder skin and greater weight.

The stampede continued without pause, and when Hunk looked back, he could see no end to it. He and Shay were halfway down the beach now, and still running to say alive. Now they were all the way down the beach. Now their ankles were in the ocean, and the fish were making a splash and spray as they entered the water. Now they were up to their knees, and now their waists. At this point, the fish around them were letting go of each other, to continue on by swimming. Hunk realized that if he and Shay could get just a little further out to sea and stay there, the stampede would become a non-issue, as it would just swim around them. "Hunk!" Shay called. "Hunk, I can't swim!"

He looked back and saw she was up to her armpits. "Just a little further!" He called.

"I sink!"

"We won't go that deep! Just a little further!"

She was up to her neck. Hunk's feet broke contact with the ground, and now he was treading water. Shay was right behind him, but she was taller, so she should be better off… Right? "Put your—" A splash from a fish entered his mouth and briefly cut off his words. "Put your arms up above the water!" He spat. "Less buoyancy! It'll keep you planted!"

Shay put her arms above her head, and turned her mouth upwards. "Okay!" She said. Her feet sunk a few centimeters into the sand, and now she seemed stable. "I think I'm okay!"

A wave crashed over them. Hunk lost his sense of direction briefly as his head went under, and Shay was almost knocked off her feet. Her head went beneath the water for a moment, and it scared her.

The head of a passing fish punched Hunk in the gut. One of the 'mating' claws of another scratched across his leg.

"Hunk! Hunk, I don't think this is a good—"

A pair of fish was late to decouple, and their combined weight slammed into her back. An enormous wave crashed over them at the same time.

It was a second or so before Hunk got his bearings again. And when his head came back out of the water, Shay wasn't there.

He grabbed a gulp of air and ducked back under, aiming in the rough direction where he'd seen her last. Human eyes are next to useless underwater, so the entire world was a blur; the rushing brown shapes of fish, the white of bubbles and foam, and the shifting patterns of blue light interrupted by the darker shadows of birds flying overhead.

Five seconds passed underwater. Ten.

He had to return to the surface for a breath, and he still didn't see her. "Shay!" He called. "Hey, where are you?! Can you hear me?" He was beginning to panic.

The undertow and the jostling of fish had carried Shay a small distance out to sea by the time she finally got her feet under her. And the water was over her head. She reached her arms up, and felt her hands break the surface. She jumped, but wasn't able to get her head high enough. She began walking, but wasn't sure which direction land was. "Which way, Hunk?!" She cried, but words and breathing don't work underwater, and when she inhaled again, it was water instead of oxygen.

Hunk saw her hand appear briefly above the surface about 3 meters to his left. He swam as hard as he could in her direction, took a deep breath, and dived underwater. He finally located her by the sight of her dress: a thrashing green/grey blur among the blue and brown. His hand found her arm, and hers found his, and her grip was as tight as a vice.

He was a pretty strong swimmer, and she only weighed about 180 dythos underwater, but that was still way too much for him to keep afloat, especially with her struggling as much as she was. There was no way he could keep them both off the ocean floor; one of them had to stay under. So, exhausted of options, he did the only thing he could think of. He ducked his head between her legs so that she was sitting on his shoulders, grabbed her thighs, got his feet under him, and stood up.

Her head cleared the surface, barely, and she coughed up some water, and began gulping air. Below her, Hunk turned himself toward shore. His legs were feeling unstable, but he made them walk anyway. Shay was holding onto his arms and head hard enough to leave a bruise, but he made himself ignore it. His lungs were demanding oxygen, but he told them to shut up and deal with it. So he walked.

Shay breathed the water deeply and thankfully for a few seconds, and her own panic began to recede, and the better judgement it had driven out returned. That was when she realized what Hunk was doing, how hard she was gripping him, and that he hadn't gotten any air for the past minute or so. She released her grip and spouted an apology that he couldn't hear from down there. She saw a bubble rise up from the darkness where his head was, and felt him stagger. Now figuring that they were near enough to shore that she could breath without him holding her up, she forcefully dismounted, then grabbed his shirt, and lifted him up for the rest of the way to shore.

The stampede had ended sometime during the ordeal, and the last of the Voltron Fish were detaching and diving. Shay set him down in the shallow water, and rolled onto her back beside him. They lay there for a minute or two just breathing, panting and coughing and feeling very, very glad to be alive.

"I'm sorry…" Shay said. "I… I panicked."

"It's… It's normal. Don't… Don't worry." Hunk gasped. "You were drowning. Drowning people panic. It's normal. Don't worry."

"I… I almost killed you." She said. "I… I held you under. I almost drowned you. Or crushed you. I… I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Hunk gasped again. "Just a mistake. Yeah, it's all fine. We're good now, right?"

"Yeah." Shay felt her breathing slowly return to normal. "Yeah."

"Yeah!" Hunk was getting calmer too, and shook his head to clear away the last of the daze. "Yeah."

Shay rubbed her eyes, and finally looked around again. There were no more Voltron Fish. And the last of the fortress-beasts had disappeared too. "What's wrong…?" She asked.

"Uh, nothing actually." Hunk was examining his bayard. "Turns out this thing is waterproof! See?" It lit up yellow and transformed into a gun. "Pew pew pew! Ready to rock and roll."

"No…" She frowned. "I mean the animals. They've all gone…"

"Huh?" Hunk looked around. "Oh yeah… Look at that. Sure enough. Wow."

"Even the birds." Shay said.

Overhead, the rush had died down, and there were only a few stragglers now, flapping off over the ocean to join their enormous flock of brethren in the receding distance.

"Huh." Hunk frowned.

Then, as if on a command, every single bird, from the multitude in the distance to the few that were near, all tucked in their wings and dived for the water. Ten thousand colorful shapes closed their beaks and opened their gills and dropped like stones, disappeared with ten thousand distant splashes,

And then the sky was empty.

The air was empty too. The only sound was the breathing of Hunk and Shay, and the quiet lapping of waves.

"This isn't how migration usually works…?" Shay assumed nervously.

"No…" Hunk stood up slowly, and looked around, not knowing what to expect, but thinking perhaps that the forest would come alive with sleeping monsters, or a hurricane would begin, or lighting would strike right out of the cloudless sky… He had no idea what was happening, but the air seemed to have filled with a climax of dreadful foreboding. "It seems like every single animal here knows something we don't…"

The leaves on the trees went limp as they pumped all their fluid down into their roots.

The flowers closed their petals.

The mushrooms dropped their spores while they still could.

The mountains began to move.

"This entire world is holding its breath…" Shay whispered.

The yellow lion turned its head to look up at the sky.

"Holy crap." Hunk blinked. "The probe said this world was uninhabitable… What if it wasn't wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

The lion stood and began running toward them.

And then the world was awash in burning light as the sun exploded.


End file.
